Hatful of Homicide: A Brenda Midnight Mystery

Brenda Midnight owns a milliner's shop in the Village. Murder seems to follow her. After hinting for weeks that she wants a surprise party on her birthday, she is not surprised that her friend Dweena calls her to say that she has been kidnapped. Brenda thinks that it is an elaborate ruse to get her to the party. Only Dweena really has been kidnapped, by an ersatz Amabassador of a phony country. After he gets his 50G ransom, Dweena is released. However, he is shortly thereafter accused of a murder and is using Dweena's money to pay for his defense. Brenda and Dweena have to find the murderer for that reason as well as others.I found this to be an entertaining mystery. I figured out part but not all of the mystery fairly quickly. The rest was a surprise. One point, why are all female sleuths vegatarians these days?

Brenda Midnight, a Greenwich Village Hatmaker, her little dog Jackhammer, and her irreverant, eccentric pal, Dweena, frolic through another fun-loving urban mystery. Even the cops in this one are a treat! A rolicking read for urban mystery fans!

The best start for a book is one that grabs your attention and keeps it there, and that's just what happens in this madcap mystery, Hatful of Homicide, when hat creator / sleuth Brenda receives a phone call on her birthday that leads her to an unusual, action packed get together. The reader is entertained, humored, and like Brenda Midnight, drawn into the middle of the pandemonium. As each scenario is played out in the kidnapping and murder, I'm not sure whodunit or why, but I am sure that this is a good story line with some good points. As the murder and mayhem moved on, the series characters lives continue without interfering or distracting me from the mystery. There were enough scenarios to make me think twice, and enough characters to keep me in doubt of my amateur work as a puzzle solver. I will be honest and say I had it solved about three-fourths of the way through, but like I said, there was enough going on to keep me in doubt until Brenda, taking a que from the infamous Murder She Wrote sleuth Jessica Fletcher, sets up the one she suspects.Barbara Jaye Wilson's talent for adding humor and wit to her characters is exceptional. The off the wall humor is hysterical without being offensive or biting. I was impressed with the eclectic cast of Detectives Turner and McKinley, who recommend Brenda go back to Midnight Millinery and make hats instead of deducing; returning characters, Chuck the computer wiz and Elizabeth an older friend who shells out advice; Johnny the TV detective, who has some secrets of his own that make Brenda suspicious; P.G. Dover, Ambassador to Gintoflakokia who isn't who he seems; One Coat, a paint store owner, who loves to say I told you so to amateur painters like Brenda; Brewster Winfield a sleazy lawyer with a strange sideline; Tommy who runs a local hangout and his bartender/cook Raphael, and last but not least Brenda's unique buddy, tall, gorgeous, sexy Dweena who occasionally under stress, can't keep Edward from peeking thorough.

That quirky sleuth, Brenda Midnight is back and better than ever. Her cast of equally unique and creative characters make reading Hatful of Homicide a delight. Like Jackhammer, her Yorkie, we get a wonderful walk through the Village as the well plotted tale twists and turns. She captures the local denizens and wannabees like a modern Daumier. Who else but Barabara Jaye Wilson could introduce us to bewigged Dweena (who used to be Edward the stockbroker), Lemmy Crenshaw (the turncoat agent), Brew Winfield (his law practice takes second chair to his talented snake)One-Coat (Joe owns the local paint shop)? Brenda, partly terrified by the danger but seeking justice and a murderer, not to mention the right paint color for her shop, finds out who done it despite the police, a tough kidnapper and all of Dweena's scams and hilarious lies. Best read of the summer.

Since Brenda Midnight was expecting a surprise birthday party, a call from a kidnapper demanding a ransom for her friend Dweena was no shock. However, when Brenda discovers that her surprise was a little too real, her birthday hopes go up in flames. As her transvestite and former Wall Streeter friend Dweena drags Brenda around New York in order to retrieve the ransom, Brenda discovers that no one tells her the truth, not even her friends.This is a light-hearted, enjoyable read that allows to reader to become as frustrated as Brenda as she attempts to get the truth from her friends, design a new hat, and paint her shop without going bankrupt in the process.